


God Bless the Child

by america_oreosandkitkats



Series: The Resolution of Our Elements [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Cold War, Family, Gen, Human & Country Names Used, Hurt/Comfort, JFK assassination, Revolutionary War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-03 16:50:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8721373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/america_oreosandkitkats/pseuds/america_oreosandkitkats
Summary: The president has been killed. Ireland goes to comfort her niece, America.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Mama may have, Papa may have,_  
>  But God bless the child who’s got his own,  
> who’s got his own

**Late November - 1963**  
**Outside Reston, VA**

Dulles International Airport is a block of angles and curves constructed from futurist aspirations and concrete. A roof sinks into a long row of columns like a canvas tent. Those spindles seem to reach like arms for the clouds, and in that regard, Fionna supposes it suits her niece then—the little imp was always climbing about in trees trying to pull herself into the warm embrace of the sun and sky. The airport is hardly a year old and bustling with people, but admittedly, Fionna thinks it looks rather bawdy.

The sun is bright through heavy-laden clouds, but the day is not particularly warm. It has been raining for most of the afternoon (and will probably rain again in the evening), and the glistening sidewalk is dotted with puddles. She buries her chin in her green cashmere scarf as she approaches her ride.

The car waiting for her is a black Chrysler Variant with plain government plates. The back windows are blocked with a thick dark material, which strikes Fionna as odd.

The driver isn’t Marcus; this one is new. He’s not particularly tall, but not that short either. His skin is ochre, temples grey and smile white and sweet. His name is Phillip.

“How was your flight in, Miss Ireland?” he asks, taking her bag. He sets it in the trunk.

He _is_ new. “Call me Fionna,” she says. “Miss Kirkland, if you must.”

A touch of red reaches Phillip’s cheeks. He clears his throat and closes the trunk with a _snap_.

She’s only _Ireland_ during diplomatic summits (but most especially to Arthur if he’s being a prat, which is most of the time). She has no reason to be so formal in, of all places, the United States.

“How’s my niece gettin’ on then?” Fionna asks, blocking the sun with her hand.

That charming grin of his falters like a candle caught in a breeze. He pauses for a moment before answering. “It’s been…it’s been hard for all of us,” he says hesitantly. “So I suppose it’s hit her twice as hard.”

There are many names for the phenomena, but she knows it at the Paradox of Influence. As Nation States, they embody the will of their people and the force of their governments, but they are their own persons too. They have thoughts, hopes, worries, and those feelings seep into the general population. Which comes first, who has the more autonomy, has been a subject of debate among her kind since she was a child. Fionna grimaces, because she’s unsure if her niece and her people will fall into an unbreakable cycle of self-reinforced grief.

“But she’s ok?” Fiona asks. “All things considered?”

“America hasn’t called on us to get her anywhere, so I’d venture to say she hasn’t left her room since then, Miss um… _Kirkland_.”

Fionna sighs through her nose and her shoulders sink. It’s been seven days.

She doesn’t disparage the girl, far from it. When she heard the news herself, it felt as though something had been torn from inside her heart as well, like petals plucked from a blossom.

Jack Kennedy had his personal faults to be sure, but he was fundamentally a good man, demonstrably a good president. She shudders to think what would have happened last year if Jack wasn’t there (or, and perhaps more emphatically, if his brother Bobby wasn’t).

It would have been one thing if Jack had accidentally overdosed, if he had had a heart attack and died on the operating table—but he was shot in the head in broad daylight like a deer in open pasture.

(And whispers of Soviet involvement make Fionna’s hands tremble.)

No, she does not disparage her niece. She can’t. And for that simple reason alone, Fionna has made the long journey across the Atlantic to see her.

“Rush hour starts soon, yeah?” she asks. “Best we get on the road then. Georgetown will be a nightmare if we wait around too much longer.”

Phillip opens the back door for her. “We’re not going to Georgetown,” he says.

Fionna creases her brow and crosses her arms. “Has she moved?”

Phillip shakes his head. “The President thought it would be best to move the Nation to a safe location.”

“Where exactly are we going, then?”

“It’s classified, Miss Kirkland.”

She ducks her head into the car and sees that there is an opaque plastic divider separating the back from the front, like the panel between taxi driver and customer. She sighs and a sadness creeps around the pit of her stomach.

“I suppose that makes sense,” she says softly. “Can’t be too careful these days, yeah?”

He hums in agreeance, but his eyes are distressed as well. “I can tell you it’ll be a bit of a drive,” he says. “It’s hard to hear through the plastic, so we won’t really be able to talk.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” she says, waving him off. “I can keep myself busy.”

Phillip seems to note her discomfort. The look he gives her is sympathetic.

They settle into the car and a cloud crawls over the sun. They haven’t been driving for more than five minutes before the rain begins to pelt the roof.

 

 

 

 **April 1778**  
**Valley Forge, PA**

She is humming a tune, pulling her needle through cloth, when Amelia’s shriek stops Fionna’s heart. She snaps her head in the direction of the sound—back aways, past the drilling green; she can’t quite see her—and pricks her finger with the needle.

Fionna yelps and shakes her hand. She struck herself just hard enough for it to hurt but not draw blood.

“You alright there, Miss Kirkland?” Sally asks. Sally, with her small and nimble fingers, has been given a particularly tricky tear in a gentleman’s coat to repair.

There’s a group of them (seven, to be precise) sitting around a crackling fire, mending shirts and coats and breeches.

Fionna waves away the girl’s concern.

Amelia shrieks again and the Nation State can’t bear it any longer. She hands her work to Missie, stands and looks past the training pitch in search of the sound’s source.

A new voice joins in, gruff and deep. It’s her brother Alistair, and her stomach turns like she’s on the high seas. He’s the oldest of the Isle States, but so often he doesn’t act it. Fionna hikes up her skirts and trots away.

“Go get ’em, Miss K!” cries Missie.

Her face is burning with all the rage of a sweltering forest fire as she passes the army (or what could be laughingly called one).

Several columns of colonists are marching, following the orders of a higher ranked soldier. Their coats are as blue as the night sky, trimmed with dashing red and crisp white. The columns march in sharp, even movements. Not quite in sync but leaps and bounds from where they were last year.

On the other side, they have set up a firing range. An officer calls out “three, two, one,” and after a deafening _crack_ , smoke emits from long rifles.

Closer to her ring of menders, some men have lined up for food: a slop of some white-colored soup. That they have _food_ again at all is a miracle in and of itself.

One of hers walks by Fionna (too new to the colonies to be anything _but_ hers) and bids her good afternoon, but she hears the shriek again and pays him no heed. She picks up her pace, wants to kick off her shoes and run, but propriety keeps her as is.

Her mind races and her heart thrums with the rhythm of a hummingbird’s wings. Amelia has just returned from a reconnaissance mission in New York. She has stitches on her arm. She’s exhausted, not thinking straight. She’s just a _child_ , she can’t—

On the very edge of the training ground, where the plateau begins to curve into a gully, she finds them. They’re sparring—Alistair, with his shirt off; Amelia, in the thick linen stay Fionna has made to keep her developing breasts flat and out of the way.

Amelia has her back to her, and though Fionna is in Alistair’s line of sight, his focus is squarely on the girl. He barks a command, “Block your chin, for fuck’s sake, lass!”

Amelia dances on the tips of her toes, barely hiding how exhausted she is. Her hair, golden like freshly harvested wheat, is long and braided and swings with each movement like a horse’s tail.

The line of stitches on her arm is split open, but it’s not bleeding, praise God. There’s flecks of crimson splotched on the dirt though.

Alistair goes in for another strike, and Amelia is too tired to react fast enough. Fionna’s own blood goes as cold as the Delaware.

“Alistair!” she cries. Her hands, still gripping her skirts, tremble.

Her brother, _Scotland_ , stops. He pulls back from his niece and finally catches her eye. “What’re you doing here, Fi?” Alistair drawls.

Amelia turns around to face her and her whole disposition lights up, as much as it can through her injuries. The side of her face is red and puffy. Her bottom lip is split and a bubble of blood forms when she smiles at her. She wipes it away with the back of her wrist. There’s a gash just over her right eyebrow.

“Hi, Aunt Fionna!” Amelia exclaims with a wave.

If Fionna and Alistair appear in their mid-twenties, then Amelia stands at a solid five-feet, three-inches and looks fourteen. A _girl_.

Her nerves feel as exposed and frayed as a ship’s rope.

“We’re just training, Sis,” Alistair grins heartily, like that’s supposed to fix anything. Amelia nods with youthful exuberance.

Before she can get another word out, another voice calls for her niece from behind. The voice is a tenor, sharp as a fencing blade and smothered deep in the Rhine.

Her stomach drops, as though the earth has been snatched beneath her feet. The small hairs on the back of her neck rise. She presses her hands into the material of her stay and waits for the feeling to pass. Lord Almighty, does Fionna hate Empires.

 _This_ one’s name is Prussia. He’s a powerful thing, even if he only appears a few years older than Amelia. If it were up to Fionna, she’d ship him right back to Königsberg faster than Alistair can pound back a bottle of whiskey.

That Amelia has taken a liking to him means nothing to the Nation State.

The impossibly pale Empire breezes right past Fionna. She pleads with him—“Prussia, don’t”—but he continues on to pull Amelia from her uncle.

It’s not that he’s intentionally ignoring her. It’s that Prussia hasn’t _bothered_ to learn even the simplest phrases in English. Something hot and angry flairs up in her.

He’s hollering something or another at the girl, face twisted up in a fury that doesn’t befit such a warm, spring day in the slightest. The girl’s face lights up like a bonfire and she stammers out the appropriate _ja_ or _nein_. The number of Germans who claim the colonies as home is not an insignificant figure, and Fionna sometimes wonders if it weren’t for her and Alistair if German wouldn’t have been her first language. Prussia takes the girl away.

Alistair approaches Fionna now, shirt and canteen in hand.

“Put your shirt on, Alistair,” Fionna scolds. Her brother is a sturdy man with a thatch of hair on his torso as thick as his accent. “And go fetch that girl from the German menace.”

“Ah, leave ’em be, Fionna,” he chuckles. He does, however, bide her command for reclothing. “He’s basically the only one keeping little Mill from shooting her own damn foot off.”

“ _We_ could do that.”

“We _could_ , yes. But Millie won’t listen to us. We’re family. And Gilbert isn’t just new, he’s Continental.”

Prussia has Amelia, now fully dressed, tricorn hat and all, fall back in line with marching soldiers. He barks commands and a young colonist doles out translations. Amelia is trying to keep a straight face, but her excitement slips through. Fionna can see how thrilled she is to be under Prussia’s watch even from here.

“Oh, you’re on a first name basis with Empires now, are you?” Fionna scoffs. Alistair merely shrugs.

“He knows his way around a pint.”

Fionna turns to him. “And so do I! I’m _family_ , Alistair—”

He takes her by the shoulders and looks her straight on.

“It’s fine, Fi,” he asserts. “Relax. Millie’s a smart lass and Gilbert’s just here to help.”

Frowning, she bats his arm and steps away from him. “The same way _you’re_ helping by opening up her stitches in a sparring match?”

“She’ll heal, Fi! She’s a kid and kids get hurt, but they dust themselves off and get back up, they do. Remember when we was kids and raising Arthur?”

“ _Don’t_ remind me.”

“You gotta let ’em go eventually, Fi. Especially in these times.”

She looks back at the field. Amelia looks almost like a parody, standing among men and older boys, but she’s strong and nothing seems to cloud her sunny disposition. She _is_ clever, as Alistair says, and kind too. But the world is big and cruel, and she isn’t sure Amelia really understands what _freedom_ means.

She feels Alistair wrap his arms around her and squeeze her tight. His reassuring embrace eases the ache in her heart.

“She’s always going to have you, love, but you gotta let her be the hero of her own story.” A kiss on her temple.

Fionna pathetically tries to push him away, but he holds her tighter. “You know you love me. You also know I’m right.”

Amelia catches her eye and gives a little wave that somehow misses Prussia’s gaze. Fionna waves back and tries not to to let the tears in her eyes fall.

She knows Alistair’s right, but she’ll never admit it aloud.

 

 

 

**Present Day**

The car rolls along a gravel and dirt road and comes to a stop. The jostle stirs Fionna from her dreams. Bleary eyed, she takes note of her watch. They’ve been driving for almost three hours.

The sun has set, but at least the rain has stopped.

Phillip opens the door for her and she takes in the location. They’ve come to a simple farmhouse atop a small hamlet, two storied and painted yellow.

A porch wraps around the house. Two men, their faces hardened and vigilant, lean on the bannister. They’re both in suits, and there’s an awkward sort of way in how they move their bodies that suggests they’re armed.

An oak tree sits in the front, spindly branches shuddering in the cold, brusque wind. Farmland stretches below them in all directions, at least 15 acres. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around for miles.

Phillip opens the trunk and retrieves her bag. “You’ll be staying in the west room,” he says, gesturing to the left. “I hope you like it. Mary Anne picked out the bedsheets.”

Each window in the house is lit and as they approach it, Fionna can hear the hustle and bustle of bureaucrats and the ringing of phones. The far window on the second floor is still and quiet though, as if no one was there at all. But she can feel Amelia’s Nationality across her skin like an approaching storm in June. Her mouth goes dry and her stomach turns.

Phillip fishes out his lanyard from under his shirt and shows the two men on the porch his card. The one with auburn hair looks it over and nods. When he catches Fionna’s eye, the look he gives her, in turn, is surprised but pleasantly so. He is one of hers, distant but close enough that she can feel a connection. It’s a cool and misty feeling like winter fog. She smiles at him and nods in recognition.

The other suited man has a crooked, flat nose, and he glances at her just a moment longer than necessary. He looks at her not with lust or with curiosity but with steely contempt, like a Rottweiler before protestors. He saunters in front of the door.

Fionna crosses her arms and juts her hip out. “You ok there?”

“Ireland, is it?” the man with the broken nose asks. He speaks with an American accent so smooth that a distinct origin slides right off. He motions to her bag and purse. “We’re going to have to search your belongings.”

Fionna blanches.

“Knock it off, Adam,” the auburn haired man chides. He’s from Boston.

“Can never be too careful, Sean,” Adam responds with a shrug. “Just because she’s your motherland doesn’t mean she can’t be working with the communists.”

The blood rushes to her cheeks and her jaw drops slightly. “You can’t be serious.”

“As serious as a shot president,” Adam grunts. He pulls back his jacket, displaying not only his firearm holstered on his hip, but an identification card with C, I and A in blocky letters across the top. “Now this badge says I have the right to deny entry, at my discretion, to anyone who might want to get a little too close to our Nation.”

“You know this isn’t necessary,” Phillip asserts, but Adam shoots him a cold look.

Fionna does not consider herself a tall woman—her stature over Arthur is hardly an achievement—but in her pumps, she meets Adam’s eye.

“I am the Nation State of Ireland, you pretentious fool of a man,” she seethes. “You are an _amoeba_ compared to me and my kin.”

Adam sneers, only flaring up Fionna’s rage.

“You think you can wave your little Central Intelligence badge like I’m going to be impressed. You _will_ let me see my niece, your National avatar of the United States, this instant.”

“You have no power here.” Adam crosses his arms and rocks on his heel, exposing the firearm again. She almost rolls her eyes. “This isn’t Dublin.”

Fionna takes one more step toward him. He has to step backwards to keep their bodies from touching. She can feel her Nationality creeping against his humanity and is surprised she doesn’t see or smell sparks.

“I _raised_ her,” she hisses. She points up to where Amelia’s room is. “If it wasn’t for me and Scotland, you wouldn’t be here.”

She can see a sheen of sweat beading on Adam’s forehead. Sean looks like he’s moments away from either fainting or throwing up.

“So. Let. Me. Through.”

Adam’s contempt does not shift, but his weight does. He takes a step to the side and lets them pass. Phillip closes the door behind them a little sharper than would be deemed polite.

“Sorry about that,” Phillip mutters to her as they cross into the foyer. The floorboards sink and sigh with their steps.

“Think nothing of it,” Fionna grumbles. “I’ve dealt with much worse, I assure you.”

Phillip moves the suitcase to his other hand. She offers to take it back, but he refuses.

“You shouldn’t have to, though. Not here, anyway.”

Her hand hovers over the doorknob to the dining area and kitchen. The commotion on the other side is noisy but muffled. She gives Phillip a curious look.

“You’re family,” he clarifies. “I know I’m new to this whole…Nation State deal, but you don’t disrespect family like that.”

Fionna feels something stir within her, warm and bright like the summer sun. She smiles at Phillip. “Thank you,” she murmurs, and he nods in acceptance.

She opens the door with a twist and a shove. It’s an old house and the jamb is tight from the cold.

The house has a musty wood and old leather scent, along with the heavy haze of tobacco smoke. The chatter is so loud and overlapping that it reminds Fionna of the old broken radio she has in her room.

The kitchen and dining area is large, almost fifty feet in length. The warm halogen lights are orange and dim. There are two tables slammed next to each other, where the majority of the team huddles around. There are papers stacked to her elbow on one end, folders on the other. In the center sits a bowl of ash, with a handful of cigarette butts sticking out like weeds.

A young woman with a round face and small mouth sucks on a cigarette while she cracks at the typewriter. She asks Harry to repeat what he just said, and a young man with a shock of blond hair does so. Two men are on the phone and call out details to the table. The open window brings in the cold air but pushes out the stench of smoke wafting from their Camels and Marlboros.

Alerted that someone new has entered, the flurry of bureaucrats look up from their work and stare at her. A stunned silence settles among them; even the men on the phone press the receivers into their shoulders. It’s the type of deference and awe she would expect for someone royal or holy. But she is none of those things and despises her fellow Nations who believe that they are either or both.

There are quite a number of her people’s descendents among the men and women in this room. Fionna slides her toe in a small circle, to remind herself that she is in fact on solid ground and not high on a teetering precipice like her body thinks it is.

Perhaps she should say hello. Thank them for their hard work.

A pressure at her elbow (Phillip) slowly pulls her from the group and down another hallway.

That feeling of being so near those that are hers (but at the same time quite clearly _not_ hers) has been off-putting since she and Alistair first crossed the Atlantic several centuries ago.

Phillip opens the door to the far room and places her suitcase on the bed. It is something she would describe as _cozy_. The walls are pale yellow, the trim white. The sheets are cream-colored with a rose blossom pattern, and in a small glass of water on the nightstand is a real life rose. Also on the nightstand are a Bible and an alarm clock. Hands on her hips, Fionna steps into the room and nods in approval. She’ll have to find Mary Anne herself and thank her personally.

She shrugs out of her grey and pink tweed coat and unwraps the scarf from around her neck. She places both of these next to her suitcase, which she opens next.

“You aren’t going home right away, are you?” Fionna asks Phillip. He’s leaning on the wall beside the window. She takes out the dress she plans on wearing to Mass from the suitcase.

“There should be a TV dinner in the freezer,” he says. Fionna crosses the small room and opens the closet. “I’ll fix myself up one of those and then hit the road.”

Fionna puts the dress inside and shakes her head.

“Absolutely not. You can take some of what I cook for Millie—what?”

The look of scandal on Phillip’s face is equal parts alarming and humorous.

Phillip blinks and sputters. “I’ve just…I’ve never heard anyone call America…well… _that_ before.”

Fionna smirks. “Phillip, I used to change her nappies.” She chuckles here. “I’m not about to go around calling her _America_.”

She isn’t quite sure Phillip’s face can lose any more color.

“The little bugger’s upstairs, ain’t she?” she asks. She claps and rubs her hands together.

“She was asleep, last I heard,” Phillip says with a nod.

“Well then, I guess I’m just going to have to wake her up. I didn’t come all the way just for her to sleep.”

“I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you, Miss Ireland.”

Fionna sighs. “ _Kirkland_ , please. And you best start getting used to calling her Amelia. She hates it when her people address her so formally.”

“Yes, Miss, um…Kirkland.”

***

Amelia is in the last room on the second floor. No light peers through the space between the door and the hardwood; if she thinks about it, the air is cooler here too. It’s silent on the other side. Fionna’s stomach twists and coils tightly like ivy, and it has nothing to do with the nearness of her Nationality. She takes a deep breath and knocks.

“Millie,” she calls out. “Millie, you in there?”

No response.

“It’s your Aunt Fi, kid. I’ve been traveling all day to see you. Come open the door.”

Silence.

Fionna drops her forehead to the door and grimaces. “Oh, bonnie lass,” she murmurs. She gives the brass handle a little twist—it’s unlocked at least—and enters.

Enough light spills in from under the door and from the moon that she can maneuver her way through the space. It’s mostly empty anyway, save for an oak writing desk to her left where Amelia has tossed a tawny leather satchel.

Her bed is on the far side of the room under the window. The forest green blankets are gathered around her face so Fionna can only see a tuft of wheat-blond hair. Her torso rises and falls with each of her deep breaths. She’s fast and sound asleep.

Fionna approaches her with slow and deliberate steps. Sorrow pierces her heart and it hurts in a way that ancient knives and spears never could. She glances down at her hands and wonders—what can she even say to the girl?

She sits on the edge of Amelia’s bed. Her body is fiercely warm, but she’s always been a bit of a warm sleeper. What does catch Fionna’s worry, though, is the darkness under her eyes, the slight puffiness of her eyelids.

She brushes a lock of Amelia’s hair from her face and caresses her cheek with the back of her hand. Her skin is warm, flushed, and smooth. Fionna is reminded, quite abruptly, of her niece as a baby. She was a chubby and happy little thing, with rolls around her wrists and ankles. Though, she always seemed to save the biggest, brightest smile for her aunt.

Amelia’s face twitches and she comes to. She blinks a few times, furrows her brow, and tries to piece together what’s happening.

Fionna smiles at her softly. “There’s my bonnie lass,” she whispers. Amelia turns to face her aunt and her June blue eyes go wide.

“Fi?” Amelia croaks. “What’re…what’re you doing here?”

“I came to see you, _milish_.” She tucks another lock of hair behind her ear. She doesn’t even bother to smooth down the cowlick by her part; she’s tried and failed to do so over almost two hundred years.

Amelia stretches and makes a little mewling sound. She pulls herself up and out of the bundle and reaches for her glasses, black and thick-rimmed with a bit of a point at the ends, sitting on the nightstand. Fionna thinks she looks rather fetching in them.

Amelia sniffs and leans back into the headboard. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming in?” she asks.

“I did, _milish_ , but you haven’t been collecting your messages,” Fionna says plainly.

Amelia perks but then drops her gaze. “Oh. Yeah. I guess I haven’t.” She runs her hand through her hair and the moonlight catches her features. A tightness creeps around Fionna’s throat.

No Nation is related by blood, but there has tended to be some resemblance among those close in culture and in history—enough so that terms like _cousin_ , _niece_ and sometimes _mother_ make sense. The Nation States of the British Isles (she, Alastair, Llewellyn, and Arthur) have referred to each other as siblings for centuries. They all have bright green eyes, knobby fingers and thick brows.

But Amelia is the spitting image of Arthur, she is. She shares the shape of his eyes, his sharp chin and cheekbones. When they laugh, their cheeks are pinched with the same dimples.

She has Fionna’s nose though: long and even and splattered with freckles and sunspots. The girl somehow avoided the Isle Brows though, thank the Good Lord in heaven.

There are no scars on her face, no fine lines around her eyes or mouth, and Fionna’s heart breaks as if it were made of nothing stronger than porcelain. She may be a Superpower, but Amelia is, in many ways, still just a girl.

“What?” Amelia asks, canting her head to the side.

Fionna waves off the question and changes the subject. “Alistair will be here later in the week.”

Amelia’s mouth twitches. It’s almost a smile.

“Is Arthur coming?” she asks.

Fionna sighs. The girl has always craved Arthur’s attention and approval the way a sinner begs for a saint’s pardon. “I think so, love, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him before I left.”

Amelia pulls her knees close to her chest and wraps her arms around them. Fionna brushes her bangs. Amelia looks off to the distance, then closes her eyes.

When Amelia was a small thing, Fionna had taken her outside to look at the stars. Appearing either five or six, the girl was too big to be held in her arms, so Fionna crouched beside her so as not to speak down to the child. Amelia’s wide eyes were already trained on the skies, and Fionna told her the stories of the heroic figures forever enshrined in the starry heavens. It was fall and the night was clean and clear and crisp.

“Am I going to be like that?” she had asked. Fionna cuddled her close and nodded.

“Aye, _milish_ ,” she smiled. “That and so much more. You’re going to be better than all of us.” She looked at her and giggled as she tickled Amelia’s sides. She laughed that chittering, full-bellied laugh of children, and Fionna’s heart almost felt too big for her chest.

“When was the last time you ate anything, pet?” Fionna asks, pulling herself back to the present.

Amelia shrugs.

“Do you _want_ anything to eat?”

She pauses for a moment before subtly nodding.

Fionna asks her what she wants, goes down a long list of pies and puddings and treats she’s known her niece’s loved for years. She settles on coddle and Fionna chuckles.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” she says with a grin. “I’ll get that started in just a minute.”

“Go send Adam to get your ingredients. He’s such a jack—”

Fionna raises a brow at her. Amelia shrinks.

“Jack _rabbit_ ,” she finishes lamely, rubbing the back of her neck. “He’s, uh, just…a really nasty guy.” She looks up at her and grins, those familiar dimples pressed into her cheeks. There is her niece. Fionna smiles back at her.

But then, her whole disposition shifts. Her shoulders shrink and she buries her chin in her knees. She squeezes her eyes tight.

“Millie…” Fionna starts.

She doesn’t say anything.

Fionna scoots closer to the girl, reaches out and pulls her into a tight embrace. As Amelia trembles under her hold, she hears her sniffle and keen. She rubs circles into her back.

Amelia grips her tight. Fionna grimaces at the pressure around her ribs. The girl has never quite comprehended her strength.

“What am I supposed to _do?_ ” Amelia chokes. She’s sobbing now, shoulder-shaking and wet.

She is all at once a little Colony (a child) and she is the fierce and noble Ireland (the older sister of her father), and she looks to her for guidance and with awe. Fionna _should_ be able to take some of her sorrow and grief away. She should be able to bundle it up tight and lob it off someplace where it can’t hurt her anymore.

She _should_ , but she _can’t_ because this is so much _bigger_ than scraped knees or broken arms or even bloody battle wounds.

And does that not spring tears into her eyes as well?

She kisses the crown of Amelia’s head but does not answer her question. She rocks her back and forth.

Amelia blubbers something she can’t quite catch, so she asks her to repeat herself.

She doesn’t say anything right away. But after a moment, she growls, “I’m going to kill him.”

Fionna’s eyes go wide and her blood turns cold. She pulls away and holds her by her shoulders. Amelia tries to look away and squirms to put more distance between them, but Fionna holds her chin and forces her to meet her gaze.

The girl’s eyes are scarlet and swollen. The moonlight makes the blue of her irises almost luminescent, almost feral even.

“You hush now you hear?” Fionna scolds. Her heart is fluttering in her chest, mad like a trapped bird. “You can’t talk like that.”

“Why not?” she seethes. “We don’t _really_ die.”

Fionna clicks the roof of her mouth with her tongue. _Petulant teenager_ (who holds them all by the handle of a black leather briefcase and a couple of digits scrawled on a sheet of paper).

“I know you’re hurting, bonnie lass, but you can’t go off and do nothing rash like that. Promise me.”

Amelia screws up her face like she’s going to retaliate with some obstinate remark, but she keeps her mouth shut.

“ _Promise me, Amelia,_ ” she emphasizes, giving her a little shake.

Fionna bares her gaze into hers. She can see her heart racing in her neck, feel her Nationality raging like a maelstrom. The small hairs on the back of Fionna’s neck rise.

The girl’s defiance crumbles.

Amelia’s bottom lip trembles and her eyes water. A small broken sound emits from the back of her throat, and she chokes, sputters, then falls right back into Fionna’s arms.

“We…we still had so much…to do,” Amelia cries. She’s hiccuping now. “Things were…finally gonna be different…better.”

“I know, Millie. I know.” She kisses her temple.

“And it _hurts,_ Aunt Fi. It _hurts_.”

She hushes her and rocks her. She knows the feeling: it's cold and sharp and rips across the heart like barbed wire; it's a cloud of smoke that festers in the lungs. That, of all Nations, her niece is feeling this again makes Fionna want to cry herself, but she won't allow herself to.

Amelia's sobs fade to hiccups. Fionna hums a melody about a small boat and the man who owns it named Feilimí. It's something she would sing to the girl when summer storms were big, loud and terrifying. It's a small gesture, but all Fionna feels she can do amidst the big, loud and terrifying world.

Amelia stiffens in her arms, then grips her tighter. She keens and cries again. Fionna stops.

“No, it’s ok,” Amelia sputters. “It’s ok, keep going, please.”

And so Fionna does.

America might be England’s girl, down to the mole they share on the tip of their right ear, but by God did Ireland and Scotland teach her how to eat, talk, and read. It’s only in the last fifty years or so that Arthur has even really started to engage with her.

Fionna knows this girl; better yet, she _understands_ Amelia. The girl Nation likes cloying sweets and the glow of fireflies; she likes cracking jokes to diffuse tension, running with the wind and that wide open sky of possibilities. Losing Jack, and losing him the way that she did, must feel like clouds as black as ink rolling across that sky.

She sings again and Amelia picks up the harmony as best she can with a stuffy nose and raw throat.

When they finish the verse, silence settles between them. Fionna kisses her niece’s forehead, pulls back so she can look at her.

“We’re going to get through this, Millie,” Fionna says. She wipes the tears from Amelia’s cheeks with her thumb. “Me and you, lass, just like old times.” Amelia nods, takes her glasses off and dries her own eyes with the back of her wrists.

They get hurt and pick themselves up again, they do.

Fionna may have let her go, but Amelia will always be her little girl.

And Fionna will always come to her side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I was gonna shit all over American history just to be fair to the shitting I'm doing on Eastern European history in _The Resolution of Our Elements_ , so here we are. Once again, this wouldn't be what it is without the help of [Miranda](http://221bdisneystreet.tumblr.com/), so give her a holler and a follow! 
> 
> The title of the fic comes from the song. You're probably more familiar with [Billie Holiday's version](http://tinyurl.com/kusnl35), but I like the [Sonny Rollins' jazz version](http://tinyurl.com/joqkrc7) too.
> 
> Chapter 2 contains more ~historical facts~ and ~headcanon deets~ I'm sure all five of you were just _dying_ to know about.


	2. Historical, Cultural and Headcanon Notes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact kids, the _character_ count for the chapter notes is only 5,000 characters. Not the word count. The character count--and that includes the HTML code. So, I had to cut down my shownotes regarding the historical and cultural background of this oneshot to make it fit. 
> 
> And I'm not going to lie. I'm the kind of nerd that's bothered by this. So, I'm here to fix it. Because the historical context for an APH oneshot is _important_.
> 
>   
>  This chapter is just here to give me more space to talk about all the things I couldn't in the shownotes.

**Some Historical Notes**

_Jack Kennedy had his personal faults to be sure, but he was fundamentally a good man, demonstrably a good president. She shudders to think what would have happened last year if Jack wasn’t there (or, and perhaps more emphatically, if his brother Bobby wasn’t)._

_It would have been one thing if Jack had accidentally overdosed, if he had had a heart attack and died on the operating table—but he was shot in the head in broad daylight like a deer in open pasture._

_(And whispers of Soviet involvement make Fionna’s hands tremble.)_

 

[John F. “Jack” Kennedy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy) was the 35th president of the United States, sworn in on January 20, 1961 and assassinated in Texas on November 22, 1963. He came into power at the height of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. There are Master's level history classes you can take regarding the subject of President Kennedy, and I'm going to give you the highlights in under 200 words.

> He remains a powerful symbol of a lost moment, of a soaring idealism and hopefulness that subsequent generations still try to recover. His allure—the romantic, almost mystic, associations his name evokes—not only survives but flourishes.
> 
> -[Alan Brinkley, "The Legacy of John F. Kennedy"](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/the-legacy-of-john-f-kennedy/309499/)

President Kennedy, to this day, is seen as one of America's greatest presidents, consistently ranks among Franklin Roosevelt in opinion polls, even 50 years after his assassination. I think if there's any one, single reason for that, it would be his role in thawing Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union. The Bay of Pigs was a disaster, yes, but it was he--among a team of advisers, including his brother, Attorney General, [Robert "Bobby" Kennedy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy)\--who orchestrated the end of the [Cuban Missile Crisis.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis) (A quick note here: Bobby Kennedy was almost as important to the success of the Kennedy administration as his brother, the President, was. Bobby Kennedy was his brother's confidant and was able to keep a rational, steady hand during contentious moments among the President's staff).

The war hawks in his cabinet were adamant that the only way to put an end to Soviet posturing in America's backyard was to bomb the missile strips. Knowing that this would have escalated tensions, but also bearing in mind that non-action would have been perceived as American weakness against the Soviets, Kennedy instead decided to institute a blockade around Cuba. Negotiations between Kennedy and Khrushchev ended on October 28, 1962 after a little over two weeks of conflict. Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missile sites. The US promised never to invade Cuba. Privately, the United States also removed missiles from Italy and Turkey. From then, either leaders worked to reduce tensions between their countries.

It's been a while since I've seen it, but in 2001, New Line released  [Thirteen Days](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yfIoHXOO9E). I remember liking it back when I saw it in high school, so, if you trust as 16 year old's cinematic opinions, give it a shot.

And just because I went to American University for my undergrad, I have to say this. Addressing the graduating class of 1963 at American University, [President Kennedy gave the first speech by an American president calling for peace between the US and the Soviet Union](https://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/BWC7I4C9QUmLG9J6I8oy8w.aspx). 

> What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war, not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace -- the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living

On the domestic side of things, Kennedy wasn't as successful, though many of his proposals were enacted after his death. [He was a proponent for the end of racial segregation, proposed a voting-rights bill and federal programs to provide health care to the elderly and poor.](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/the-legacy-of-john-f-kennedy/309499/) Historians widely consider Kennedy an "ok" President, not a "great" one, but what do historians even know what they're talking about? But regardless of his actual performance, Kennedy was seen by many as young, exuberant and a positive step forward; a breath of fresh air. There was a lot of hope riding in the guy's sails. Losing him in the way that we lost him was, in a word, devastating. That's something I hope I at least hinted at in this fic.

In regards to the line "if he had overdosed," that's a reference to rather stark irony that, although JFK was seen as young and energetic, [he actually had, like, a million health problems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy#Health), and his physicians gave him about five hundred pills for every one wrong thing with him.

Conspiracy theories started flying almost immediately regarding who actually assassinated him and why, with many people assuming Soviet involvement. In the year of our Lord, 2016, I don't think I have to delve too deeply into the subject matter of Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theories.

To be completely honest, sometimes I find myself wondering how different my country and the world might have been if Kennedy could have seen out his last year.

 

* * *

  _Her face is burning with all the rage of a sweltering forest fire as she passes the army (or what could be laughingly called one)..._ _Closer to her ring of menders, some men have lined up for food: a slop of some white-colored soup. That they have food again at all is a miracle in and of itself._

 

[Valley Forge, Pennsylvania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Forge) was, to put it mildly, a shit show. Continental soldiers resided there during the winter of 1777-78 and by the end of their time there, at least 2,500 soldiers had died due to starvation, disease and other extreme conditions.

While the winter was terrible, things started to look up around springtime. This was when [Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Forge#Baron_.28Freiherr.29_Friedrich_Wilhelm_von_Steuben)came from Paris and injected much needed training and morale boosting. Von Steuben was a disgraced Prussian officer due to his flagrant homosexual activities. When pressure from French authorities mounted and when an opportunity to leave the continent appeared, he took it and sailed to the colonies with Benjamin Franklin.

In addition to writing _Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States_ , a manual so useful that it remained in official copy until the War of 1812, von Steuben didn’t speak a word of English. He had to speak through a translator, and according to Revolutions Podcast, the more entertaining scenes at the camp came from von Steuben getting red-faced and yelling at soldiers in German that they couldn’t understand.

I wanted to do something funnier in that scene, but the fic was getting pretty long as it was and nothing was clicking quite yet.

[Cracked](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KPfoGwlzGM&t=1s), [Drunk History](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8zGCcDbq18&t=4s) and [Revolutions Podcast](http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/) ([link here for the actual episode](https://secure-hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/9/f/9/9f95c28e300e0417/25-_Valley_Forge.mp3?c_id=7071900&expiration=1481953408&hwt=65ffc6347a84b29b54c1b2bb4a2a67a8)) have far better explanations regarding who von Steuben was, and the absolute nightmare Valley Forge truly was. so go check them out.

 

* * *

_“Ah, leave ’em be, Fionna,” he chuckles. He does, however, bide her command for reclothing. “He’s basically the only one keeping little Mill from shooting her own damn foot off.”_

_“We could do that.”_

_“We could, yes. But Millie won’t listen to us. We’re family..."_

 

Alright, Cold War history is my thing (and only slice of it, if we're being completely honest), so hopefully I won't totally screw this section up.

The Irish, Scottish and American connection is a fascinating one to study, as that relationship is a deep one and its roots go far. You absolutely cannot talk about the cultural development of the United States without the influence of Ireland and Scotland.

Folks from all over Ireland and Scotland were among the first to the Eastern seaboard, though the most prominent in the discourse are those from the northern parts of Presbyterian Ireland (though [JJ Lee and Marion Casey](https://books.google.com/books/about/Making_the_Irish_American.html?id=c5TPHakJ98cC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false) would like to point out that Protestant Ireland is _not_  and should never be considered one and the same with--), the Ulster Scots. The term you're all probably more familiar with is Scots-Irish.

I'm not terribly fond of this guy's history, but there's a quote from his book, [How the Scots Invented the Modern World](https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World/dp/0609606352) that I particularly liked:

> Placenames and language reflected their northern Irish or southern Lowlands origins. They said "whar" for "where", "thar" for "there", "critter" for "creature", "nekkid" for "naked", "widder" for "widow" and "younguns for young ones." They were always "fixin'" to do something, or go "sparkin'" instead of "courting," and the younguns "growed up" instead of "grew up." [...] Ulster Scots were quick-tempered, inclined to hard work followed by bouts of boisterous leisure and heavy drinking (they were the first distillers of whiskey in the New World, employing native corn and rye instead of Scottish barely), and easy to provoke into fighting.

I'll also take some time here to touch back on President Kennedy. From [J.J. Lee and Marion R. Casey](https://books.google.com/books/about/Making_the_Irish_American.html?id=c5TPHakJ98cC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q=the%20story%20of%20the%20Fitzgeralds&f=false) again:

> The story of the Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys--despite its unique magnitude--was both symbol and substance of one of the most important themes of the second century of American life: the progress of the great wave of nineteenth-century immigration, the struggle of newcomers to force open the doors of American life so zealously guarded by those who had first settled the land. That story--in an undefinable sense, both real and metaphorical--culminated with the inauguration of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Again, I'm not an Irish-American scholar. I'm not even a Cold War scholar tbh. I'm just a grad student who has way too much time on their hands. But, in any case, come with me on this left field branch.

I feel like America and Ireland would be close, would remain close despite all the anti-Irish discrimination of the nineteenth century, because the national myth of what America is, is so tightly bound in the lived experiences of the Irish. They're kind of like two sides of the same penny: that's why Amelia has Fionna's nose; that's why Fionna is the first to come to her in this time of need.

 

* * *

_The girl’s face lights up like a bonfire and she stammers out the appropriate_ ja _or_ nein _. The number of Germans who claim the colonies as home is not an insignificant figure, and Fionna sometimes wonders if it weren’t for her and Alistair if German wouldn’t have been her first language. Prussia takes the girl away._

 

The Irish and the Scots make a huge impact on early American culture, got it. But you also can't dismiss the impact of [German immigrants](http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?zid=a1bdd01f59dacbddab4e6bea68b2a54e&action=2&documentId=GALE%7CCX3436800018&userGroupName=gray02935&jsid=f6ef0c62ec142c368bfc2a12c90b49ea) either. They started coming to our shores right in the beginning, but the biggest wave came between 1820 and the start of World War I. After those from the British Isles, the Germans were the second biggest wave of immigrants to American shores. By 1900, over 600 German language newspapers circulated around the country.

A significant number of those Germans were of [fringe Protestant pacifist sects](http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?zid=a1bdd01f59dacbddab4e6bea68b2a54e&action=2&documentId=GALE%7CCX3436800018&userGroupName=gray02935&jsid=f6ef0c62ec142c368bfc2a12c90b49ea): the Mennonites, the Amish and the Quakers are of note. Pennsylvania was established as a British colony by its founder William Penn, who was himself a Quaker. If you are American, you might have come across the term Pennsylvania Dutch every once and a while. They're not Dutch. They're German ( _Deutsch_ , Dutch, it's easy to see where those wires could have been crossed).

Thank these German offspring for your awesome, hardwood furniture, please and thank you.

If the Scots, the Irish and the Scots-Irish tended to stick to the Southern states, the cities and the Appalachian region, then the Germans found home in America's heartland. [The largest settlements were in New York, Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Milwaukee.](http://www.ushistory.org/us/25f.asp)

 

* * *

_“Is Arthur coming?” she asks._

_Fionna sighs. The girl has always craved Arthur’s attention and approval the way a sinner begs for a saint’s pardon. “I think so, love, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him before I left.”_

 

The relationship between Amelia/America and Arthur/England in this fic, and every other APH fic I write, takes a dramatic dive from the canon. Just. When you're in my party, disregard the canon. I'm only ever going to nod to it.

In most of the literature surrounding the Revolution, and the way that I learned it in school, is that the American colonies were mishandled gravely by the British crown. Negligence and poor governance allowed for this new culture to spring up. There's this great quote from Ben Franklin in the 1776 musical that I would link to, but can't find it. He says something like, "But we're not British. We're something else entirely. A little rougher around the edges..." ahh, I wish I could find it because that line (and the musical!) are fantastic.

So, in short, Amelia has Daddy Issues. 

 

* * *

 

**Some Cultural Notes**

I have no idea if Millie is the proper diminutive of Amelia, but it is here and it works really _really_ well in future fics, so I’m not changing it.

 _Milish_ is an Irish Gaelic endearment meaning _Sweet_ . [Coddle is an Irish stew](http://www.dailyedge.ie/a-defence-of-coddle-2079233-May2015/) stamped as a feckin' great “comfort food” across most of the websites I took a gander at.

The song Fionna sings to her niece is called _Báidín Fheilimí_. It’s a simple song that’s taught to most Irish children. [Here is a Spotify link](https://open.spotify.com/track/5fGkh5uh6XDRptv3WEF9A4), which, as far as I'm concerned, is how I imagine Fionna's voice to sound. I can't find the exact version of this song on YouTube, but [here's another band doing it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxlRxp-kAtc).

 

* * *

  **Some notes regarding APH Headcanons**

I based a lot of Fionna/Ireland’s character, not so much on broad Irish stereotypes, which is what tends to happen in APH, but on my own grandmother. My grandmother’s is your typical American story: Scots-Irish settlers from the eighteenth century come on a boat and settle in the rural hills of Kentucky. She was a very sweet lady who tended to be overly worried about her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And with her, anything could be fixed with a good, warm and home cooked meal.

Alastair/Scotland is, unfortunately, based a bit more on broader stereotypes, but I hope to have grounded him in some semblance of reality.

And you can pry the headcanon of Prussia teaching America warfare and America having the Biggest Crush Ever™ on him out of my cold, dead hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. Whew!!! I think that's everything. My nerd rage is at peace, finally.
> 
> Also, don't expect the other fics to have shownotes quite like this. Maaaaaaybe for ROE, but only maybe. This little 6k word fic was...surprisingly dense. I knew I had made a lot of historical allusions, but I didn't think I had done it to that degree. ~~But also I love the Kennedy/Khrushchev years and the 1960s and you literally cannot get me to stop talking about that~~  
>     
> If I missed anything, or if you have any other questions, please feel free to [shoot me an ask at the old tumblr dot com. ](http://america-oreosandkitkats.tumblr.com/ask)


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